1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to Internet Protocol (IP) telephony networks and more particularly to the management of IP telephony networks using Internet-based protocols.
2. Related Art
In today""s technological climate, the availability of low-cost computers, networking equipment, telecommunications, and related technology has dramatically changed the way people communicate. For example, the explosion of people connected to the global (sometimes referred to as the xe2x80x9cpublicxe2x80x9d) Internet has dramatically increased the usage of electronic mail (e-mail) for communications, and the use of the browsers to navigate between and view (i.e., browse) documents through the World-Wide Web.
As is well known to those skilled in the relevant art(s), the global Internet is simply the world""s largest internetxe2x80x94an interconnection of different computer networks. The Internet is thus a three-level hierarchy of networks which includes backbone, mid-level (transit),and stub networks. The backbone networks are high speed, digital or optical networks connected via network access points. Collectively, these networks form the public xe2x80x9cInternet backbone.xe2x80x9d Further, these networks, which typically span across continents, were originally deployed by ARPA and NFS, are now deployed and operated by commercial entities such as ATandT, GTE, and Sprint. Mid-level networks, typically deployed and operated by regional Internet Service Providers (ISPs) or Internet Access Providers (IAPs) operate to connect stub networks to the Internet backbone. Stub networks are local enterprise-level networks operated by educational institutions, companies, organizations, and the like.
The connectivity achieved by the Internetxe2x80x94connecting numerous, different types of networksxe2x80x94is based upon a common protocol suite utilized by those computers connecting to it. Part of the common protocol suite is the Internet Protocol (IP), defined in Internet Standard (STD) 5, Request for Comments (RFC) 791 (Internet Architecture Board). IP is a network-level, packet (i.e., a unit of transmitted data) switching protocol. Another major part of the common protocol suite is the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), which is defmed in STD 7, RFC 793. TCP is a transport-level, flow control protocol.
As is well-known in the relevant arts, TCP is used over IP (TCP/IP), and together ensure proper Internet communications. More specifically, IP separates data into packets (i.e., IP datagrams), addresses the IP datagrams, and forwards them from a source computer to a destination computer. Used in conjunction with IP, TCP holds open a path between the source and destination computers, acknowledges receipt of packets, re-sends lost packets, and guaranties correct packet order.
The User Datagram Protocol (UDP), which UDP is defined in STD 6, RFC 768, is another transport level protocol. UDP it typically used over IP (UDP/IP) and, similar to TCP/IP, allows for Internet communications. However, unlike TCP/IP, no connections need be established, and there is no guarantee of packet delivery. UDP/IP is the principal protocol used for real-time media transfer on the Internet.
Given the above, the use of Internet services, such as e-mail and browsers, are only the beginning in terms of means for people to communicate via the Internet. In recent years, the possibility of transmitting voice (i.e., audio) over the Internet has been recognized. Voice over IP (VoIP) began with computer scientists experimenting with exchanging voice using personal computers (PCs) equipped with microphones, speakers, and sound cards. This exchange employed UDP/IP over the public Internet.
In more recent years, an entire industry has evolved which primarily aims to provide cheap long-distance calls, using VoIP, that completely or partially bypasses the Public Service Telephone Network (PSTN) (also called the Plain Old Telephone System (POTS)). These services allow customers to use their standard telephones to place long distance and international calls, but still bypassing the PSTN. Several commercial VoIP carriers have emerged, offering businesses and consumers alike, telephone service over the public Internet or private IP networks.
VoIP was further facilitated when, in March of 1996, the International Telecommunications Union-Telecommunications sector (ITU-T), a United Nations organization, adopted the H.323 Internet Telephony Standard. Among its specifications, H.323 specifies the minimum standards (e.g., call setup and control) that equipment must meet in order to send voice over the IP, and other packet-switched network protocols where quality of sound cannot be guaranteed.
Most of the several emerging commercial VoIP carriers have chosen to build regional private IP backbones in order to provide VoIP services to their customers. This is because the public Internet is generally unreliable for providing quality point-to-point voice connections. That is, IP networks currently do not provide any universally deployed mechanisms for reserving bandwidth. This is compounded by the fact that the load on the public Internet is generally unpredictable. Any network congestion will result in loss or delayed packets, and thus low quality of sound (i.e., low-quality voice connection). Therefore, the aim of private IP networks is to provide an environment planned and operated in such a manner that guarantees an acceptable level of voice quality. As might be expected, the infrastructure cost to deploy and operational cost to manage an extensive private IP backbone network is not trivial. Thus, these private IP backbones are typically limited in geographic scope, thus limiting the commercial VoIP carriers from offering true low-cost, high quality call service between any two geographic locations. Consequently, recent efforts have focused on a carrier exchange (CX) service that would exchange traffic from various commercial VoIP carriers. The goal of a CX service is to eliminate the need for carriers trying to provide long distance (and international call) service to build IP telephony networks from scratch in all the geographic areas that they wished to service.
However, there are a number of shortcomings in terms of the capabilities provided by such CX services. First, the common network issue has not been addressed. That is, many CX service providers still require the use of the public Internet in order to connect to their networks. This may be both challenging and costly in certain geographic locations around the world. Some CX service organizations have built private backbone networks, but these networks typically cannot be readily extended to exchange traffic with other IP Telephony carriers. Second, there remains no way to guarantee a particular level of quality of service, other than requiring that all carriers exchanging traffic adhere to some minimum standard. Particularly where the Internet is used as the underlying communications network, it remains very difficult to be confident in the capability of other carriers to terminate calls at the correct level of quality.
Therefore, what is needed is a system, method, and computer program product which provides a quality-based voice over Internet Protocol routing CX management system. The system, method, and computer program product should allow connectivity of different types of networks operated by different carriers. The system, method, and computer program product should also provide each carrier participating in the CX management network with balance sheet calculating services in order for participants to fairly profit from the traffic they handle.
The present invention meets the above-mentioned needs by providing a system, method, and computer program product for managing a carrier exchange (CX) network.
A quality-based voice over Internet Protocol call routing system, according to an embodiment of the present invention, includes a plurality of CX proxy servers, each connected to the Internet Protocol (IP) backbone of one of the participating carriers, a CX IP backbone connected to the all of CX proxy servers, and a CX management system. The CX management system contains intelligence for routing VoIP traffic from the IP backbone of one of the participating carriers to the IP backbone of another of the participating carriers according to a pre-determined quality-based scheme.
The method of providing quality-based voice over Internet Protocol call routing, according to an embodiment of the present invention, includes the steps of using a first CX proxy server to receive VoIP traffic from the IP backbone of one of the participating carriers and then determining a destination IP backbone from among the participating carriers according to a pre-determined quality-based scheme. The method then routes the VoIP traffic to the CX proxy server associated and connected to the destination IP backbone, and then sends the VoIP traffic to the destination IP backbone.
One advantage of the present invention is that the CX network, by continuously monitoring all information regarding the quality of calls placed through the network, has the ability to manage quality of service.
Another advantage of the present invention is that each carrier participating in the CX Network will be capable of setting rules regarding the quality and cost requirements of calls that they are willing to authorize, both for inbound and for outbound traffic.
Another advantage of the present invention is that, for each participating carrier, call accounting and transaction recording is centrally maintained to allow the calculation of account balances.
Yet another advantage of the present invention is that a PSTN fallback scheme is implemented within the CX network, which is facilitated by a single gateway connected to a long distance switch capable of terminating traffic to any location in the world.
Further features and advantages of the invention as well as the structure and operation of various embodiments of the present invention are described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.
The features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the detailed description set forth below when taken in conjunction with the drawings in which like reference numbers indicate identical or functionally similar elements. Additionally, the left-most digit of a reference number identifies the drawing in which the reference number first appears.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating the system architecture of an embodiment of the present invention, showing connectivity among the various components;
FIG. 2 is a flowchart representing the general operational flow according to an embodiment of the present invention; and
FIG. 3 is a block diagram of an example computer system useful for implementing the present invention.